Section Notes April 2nd 2017

2nd April 2017
At the section AGM early in the New Year, the charity selected for our support this year was the Stroke Association and the raffle of a voucher for bike insurance at the film night in February kick-started this year’s collection with a total of £51. We shall be adding to this with the proceeds of our monthly draw at section meetings and of course, the Charity run at the end of May is the main event. In addition, we shall to add to the fund by raffling a copy of the book ”AJS of Wolverhampton” that has been kindly donated. The intention was that we should do the raffle at the section meeting in March after the main business of the evening, deciding details of the summer programme. However, that plan went by the way when the barman casually mentioned to someone getting a refill of his glass, ”Oh, by the way, I was asked to tell you, we shall be closing the clubhouse at the end of the month.”, so talk was immediately diverted to finding an alternative watering-hole for the future.
Several suggestions have been followed up, and by the following day, we had secured the use of the bar area at the imposing Seckford Hall hotel in Woodbridge for the April meeting, at least. Thanks to our Social secretary, Mel for the swift solution. More detail about a venue for the future will be announced when we meet. We’d heard a few months ago that the Golf club had applied for outline permission to develop some land at the back of the car park, so were not completely surprised but hadn’t heard it was going ahead so imminently. The plans apparently also involve re-planning the golf course, so the decision to close the entire site is probably on grounds of site and access safety, although the golfers must be a bit fed up, to say the least, at being shut out at short notice for at least six months, the whole of the summer,
We can look forward confidently to the whole of our summer, though, with riding activity starting after Easter on 23rd April with our shakedown event, the Treasure Hunt. A group will ride the following week to join the inter-section meet in Essex organised by our neighbours, the North Essex group and then the first evening run ends the month. All we need is the sunshine and we’re headed for the open road!